Stam pleased with high-tempo friendly performances

Royals' manager happy to see high work-rate in pre-season

16 July 2017

Jaap Stam said he was happy with the intensity shown by his Royals side in Saturday's friendly double-header in Holland.

A very young Royals line-up were narrowly edged out 1-0 by Belgian top tier side KV Kortrijk in Oosterbeek, before a more experienced team came from behind twice to draw 2-2 against Turkish Super Lig outfit Gençlerbirligi a few hours later.

Kortrijk had a man sent off in a highly physical second half in Oosterbeek, but the Royals could not take advantage of the extra man in the final 20 minutes.

Stam was not downbeat about the result, though, as he was impressed by the performance of the young players.

He said: “They were both very good games because we’re always looking, especially during pre-season over here, for the players to make the 90 minutes.

“The beginning is very important because you want the players as fit as you can, so last week they played 45 minutes each but now they need to play 90 minutes, so it’s very productive.

“It’s very good to play against good sides as well, most of the youngsters played against the Belgian team (KV Kortrijk), they did very well. They worked very hard in how we wanted to play. The patterns that we wanted to see, they happened.

“Of course we lost that game 1-0 but overall I’m very pleased in the performance in how they played. The Belgian team, I think, finished 8th in the highest league in Belgium so if you play with players who are 16-17 years old and you see the whole game, I think they’ve done very well."

The second match of the day saw a more experienced line-up play Gençlerbirligi in Papendal, with a rebound from Adi Popa and a curling 20-yard effort from Roy Beerens with the last kick of the game securing a 2-2 draw.

“The second game against the Turkish team (Gençlerbirligi), a team that is very experienced and they had a lot of quality as well, a team that did very well in the Turkish league last season.

“You know with them as well that they have a certain physique and technically they’ve got good players, clever players as well.

“Also in that game, we did very well in how we wanted to play, created a couple of very good chances right from the start with the header from Pelle (Clement), could have scored early.

Jaap issues instructions to midfielder Liam Kelly in the warm-up

"We concede two goals, one on the counter-attack and not being focused at certain times and then one from a corner kick. Okay, in those two moments you can do better, but that’s all about pre-season and improving those things.

“Towards the end of the game, Roy (Beerens) with a great move, ball at his feet going inside and a great shot, so I think it was at least a deserved draw. The results are not the most important things, but in how we want to play and what we want to do, you never want to lose."

The Royals continue their pre-season training programme in Holland this week, with another double-header of friendlies taking place on Saturday 22nd July.